


CSI: AICT: On Dungeons and Denoting

by sleepy_underscore_gary



Category: Acquisitions Inc., Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), The "C" Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 09:16:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18546808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepy_underscore_gary/pseuds/sleepy_underscore_gary
Summary: Precious council: here's a story told as a crime procedural inspired by an exploration of the Tetrathanotica. The team investigates a crime where the murderer has left behind one of the death symbols.Kris' original post about the language is here: https://krisstraub.com/2017/12/kthrisss-codex-tetrathanotica/No graphic violence, but some descriptions of blood, crime scenes, and murder.





	CSI: AICT: On Dungeons and Denoting

K’thriss couldn’t keep his eyes off the glyph, despite the grisly scene that drew the others’ attention. Of course, there were many times that could be said, a cartesian plane of situations that varied only along the two axes of how grisly each scene was and how intriguing each symbol. But this was suddenly different, no longer just a routine AI consultation, because now it involved the Tetrathanotica, the beautiful language of death that permanently consumed a fraction of K’thriss’ mind.  
Designed to be drawn quickly with a single hand at the moment of passing, the language was known only to the few and was communicated rarely. On a dilapidated sheet of board, where others might see only 4 strokes in a splash of gore, K’thriss could instantly feel the tautological symmetry reminiscent of the Ur, a self-evident meaning obvious to those who would see. Most of the splatters and smears that covered the wood were truly random, but these four strokes said _light_ , as clearly as if the glyph had actually been illuminated.  
The rest of the team was still staring at the charred remains of a human laying curled in an ashy refuse pit. “Someone tried to get rid of the body, but they didn’t know what they were doing,” Rosie was saying with that dangerous edge to her voice.  
One of the town watch inspectors who had brought them out to this spot in the forest nodded gravely. “Clearly someone trying something new… or rushed… maybe murder on a lark, but then why set up this board? Some kind of tombstone? Budget occult altar?”  
“A canvas,” K’thriss interjected, surprised at his own quiet wondrous tone. He pointed at the glyph, “For this.”  
Walnut looked disgusted. “A torturer’s canvas; with all the blood, it can’t have been quick,” she growled.  
“So, someone was tortured just so they would write one of your creepy death symbols?” said Donaar. “Uh, K’thriss are you sure this wasn’t you?”  
Rosie’s hand, as if without thinking, jumped to her wrist where the bracelet had been connected to his choke collar, and she eyed him with concern.  
K’thriss felt a quick flash of fear as the Ur filled his mind, his face like that of a Dran and Courtier regular waking up at the bar and wondering where the night had gone, but his fears were quickly allayed. One benefit of living close to the edge of sanity for an extended period was that one could catalogue the strange territory there quite precisely.  
“Yes,” K’thriss said. “The last time I had a break from this reality was 43 days ago, too long for this to have been done. Besides, you’ve all been with me over the last few days.” He paused to consider. “Then again, I suppose flesh is such a flimsy substrate for something amorphous as memory, it’s hard to be certain…” But the others had already looked back to the corpse.  
“Yeah, not enough tentacles here,” said Donaar. “What are the chances there’s another weirdo interested in this language?”  
"There are," K'thriss said. "We met them."  
“I heard Omin did it,” said a voice no one could quite identify.  
Walnut looked around for the speaker angrily, then turned to the chief inspector. “Usually, a single murder wouldn’t be big enough for a company as renowned as Acquisitions Incorporated,” she said, sun glinting off her badge. “But because this has some…” she looked at K’thriss, sighed, and turned back, “personal connection, we’ll be happy to help.”  
Grateful, K’thriss could have sworn he glimpsed a bit of Maeliki’s glory shining through her.  
“Can I borrow these?” Donaar asked as he grabbed a pair of eyeglasses from one of the watch and put them on. “Well it certainly looks like-“  
Walnut interrupted him, “I swear to god if you make a CSI stinger pun, we’re leaving you behind to walk.”  
“Well it looks like someone-“ Donaar tried again.  
“No!” yelled Walnut.

......................

“And then you stopped me from making an awesome pun,” Donaar was saying as they sat around their usual table at the Dran and Courtier. The smell of warm scones and black tea filled the morning air as Walnut passed out the mail with efficiency.  
“Huh, there’s even one for K’thriss,” said Walnut. It was rare for him to receive physical rather than ethereal messages, but not unheard of. He opened the plain parchment envelope. Inside was nothing but a single sheet marked in blood with another glyph. K’thriss dropped the note as if it were hot. _Brother_ , the symbol read. The others just stared  
“Who would do this?” asked Rosie. “Is this a taunt? A trap? Is he trying to reach out to you?”  
“A riddle,” said K’thriss. "I know what it means, but I don't know what it means. What is the meaning of 'meaning?'”  
Walnut interrupted, “Well they’re stupid; now we have evidence.” She delicately picked up the sheet and investigated it. “Is there any way to figure out whose blood it is? Some kind of spell?” She looked at Rosie, who shrugged.  
“Could be anybody’s. Could be this guy’s own blood. Could be pig’s blood,” said Donaar.  
Rosie investigated the bloody smear. “We don’t know who wrote it either. I assume it was the killer, but it could have been a victim. Maybe tortured and forced like last time.”  
“Could we get finger prints?” said Walnut. “Are finger prints impressive in D&D?”  
“Man,” said Donaar. “This would be a lot easier with futuristic detective technology.”  
Walnut carefully placed the paper in a folder on which she had written _Evidence_. “Well,” she said. “We’ll hold on to it. Maybe something will come up.”  
Rosie said, “I’ll ask the family to keep an ear out for signs of some language obsessed serial killer.” She added, “Aside from K’thriss.”  
“None taken,” he said and ate a scone.  
....................

 _Meeting_ , the symbol said. It was scrawled on the outside of a box wrapped in brown paper. The sigils had been arriving almost daily now. No more symbols with bodies had been found, though. It was unclear if the murderer had stopped or simply refined his craft.  
K’thriss sat alone in his father’s library with the symbols arrayed before him, rearranging them over and over looking for some new pattern. _Knowledge, laughter, obsession_ , they said, among others, but he found no new meaning there. _Hope, despair, TheActionEconomist. Brother, meeting._ Endless iterations, but none more helpful than the last. Obviously, the sender was toying with him, and judging by the latest symbol, hoping to draw him into a one on one interaction, but to what purpose?  
K’thriss untied the parcel and ripped off the paper. He opened the small box it contained to find what looked like a severed child’s finger, its tip dipped in blood. He felt revulsion, but a subtler inner voice whispered, _It’s just meat now. It always has been,_ and Ligotti twitched. He looked more closely at the finger. No, not a child’s. Small, but it was lined with age, perhaps a halfling’s then. On the inside lid of the box, another symbol was drawn: _stars_.  
“Rosie!” K’thriss yelled. Outside, laying on the floor, his father’s knife shook.

....................

Rosie always had a far off look in her eyes when she was thinking back to her storied past, but it was as if you weren’t sure which Rosie would be staring out, the kindly grandmother or the one with steel in her eyes. Most memories seemed to make her look nostalgic, but others gave her the cold look of someone who has had to watch their own hands do terrible things. On seeing her reaction to the finger, K’thriss felt for a second he was back to being a young drow, quavering in the presence of the matriarch through some bygone arcanum.  
“An enemy has done this,” whispered Rosie. “Set out every one of those stupid symbols, this can’t go on.”  
“Excuse me, I hear the rustling of papers,” said Walnut, appearing the second he began to lay out the scraps. “I’m here to help; Kevin need not know.”  
The next few hours were a flurry of activity. Brainstorming, rearranging, connecting pieces with string, and all three at various points rubbing their eyes and leaning back with disappointment. At the end, Rosie laid out the messages in a star map of two nearby constellations.  
“What does it mean?” Walnut asked K’thriss.  
He looked at the pattern and said, “Coordinates on the east side of town. He wants to talk in two days.” He looked at the final mark. Following the brushstrokes, he could imagine the maker’s hand in motion, struggling to communicate something in its final moments. “ _Alone_.”  
“That’s not happening,” said Rosie. “He brought me into this; some things I have to take care of personally.”  
“But the message-“ said K’thriss, but Rosie held up a finger.  
“Was written by a mad man.” She placed a hand over K’thriss' and squeezed. “We’re a team. We stick by each other, no matter how different we each may be.” Her eyes turned steely again, “And looking at this flair for the gruesome, I’m afraid I might know who this is…”

....................

K’thriss creeped through the empty warehouse where the coordinates led, startled by every sound. The dim light was nothing to him, of course, but the dust and crates still felt eerie. He couldn’t see her, but knew that somewhere in the deeper shadows Rosie lurked, waiting to attack at the first sign of the murderer. The others were stationed nearby, a building away, but ready to jump in if things went south.  
All of a sudden, there was a flash and the world flipped. Dark areas became white, while the small areas of light were suddenly black. Everything was tinted at the edges with an amethyst glow.  
“Greetings, friend,” said a voice like warm milk that had begun to sour.  
K’thriss turned and saw a halfling covered in scars and cuts, each a glyph of the tetrathanotica. His left hand was wrapped in a dirty bandage.  
“Friend,” nodded K’thriss hesitantly.  
“You seem like someone who would understand,” said the halfling. “The only one, really…”  
K’thriss waited, unsure of what to say and wondering where Rosie was.  
“Help me,” said the halfling. “One alone, the work is slow, but two together could unlock more of the tetrathanotica than anyone has ever known.”  
“But why this way?” asked K’thriss.  
“If only there were another way,” the halfling replied. “But the keepers do not give up their secrets easily. To learn more than five or six symbols in a generation, one must… speed along death.”  
K’thriss considered. It did make a certain kind of sense. His own death had been an amazing opportunity for investigation, but the thought of forcing this on someone else made his stomach clench.  
The halfling continued, “It becomes easier with time. Come, we both know how inadequate these flesh machines are. Death is no great loss; we can help others see that, free them from this pain. And perhaps you can share your own knowledge…” he gestured to the Ur, and K’thriss saw a red glint in his eye.  
“Surely you can study with more traditional methods, the way the language has always been passed down,” said K’thriss, suddenly very aware of his surroundings and beginning to back away.  
“Too slow!” barked the halfling fiercely. “What would you give for such knowledge? Is any cost too great? We could be the ones to solve it, to complete the tongue. It would benefit the world! For the price of only a few.”  
“Who though?” said K’thriss, trying to keep him talking while hoping Rosie was nearby. “Who are you to decide?” Were they still on the same plane?  
The halfling sighed. “If only it could be anyone, but obviously it has to be those who know. I find them the way I found you, other seekers. When it is clear that a life is worth less than the knowledge that is carried… it is time to harvest, and thereby add to my collection.” He ran a finger across the scars on his forearm. Wind. Expectation. Hunted. Some K'thriss had never seen before but instantly interpreted with the eyes of the runekeeper, beautiful symbols portrayed in a crude medium.  
K’thriss’ throat stuck. “But… but, to kill the ones like us, the ones who know,” he stammered. “It seems almost like a betrayal.” To emphasize his point, he drew the mark for _betrayal_ in the air and was surprised to see each stroke traced by a tiny stream of emerald fire.  
“Or a gift,” said the halfling, stoic. “You’re right, they are like us, in that they would have given anything for a scrap of knowledge.” Purple fire traced his own fingers as he drew a symbol in the strange monochromatic air.  
The word flared in K’thriss’ mind. _Anything_. Would he really do anything for knowledge? In the wandering crypt, he had once been willing to sacrifice the others for a hint about the Ur, but was he still that drow? He had changed, but how much could one really alter the foundations of the mind? He stared down at his symbol of the Ur, then looked at the marks cut into the halfling’s skin. He felt the echo of Rosie’s choker around his neck, seeming to fight against the weight of the emblem on his pendant. Yet this time the squeeze felt comforting rather than constricting, more like a warm hug than choke. He looked back up into the eyes of the halfling.  
“No,” said K’thriss. “Not anything,” and he drew the AI logo in the black air. The sign manifested in the air in front of him in a rush of green flame, pushing back the halfling with energy.  
The halfling looked taken aback, then snarled before masking his emotion. “Fine,” he said. “If you won’t join me, then at least I’ll take your final sign and add it to my collection.” He drew a symbol of deep violet flame in the air, and it was K’thriss’ turn to be pushed back by an unseen force. _Hunger_ , the symbol said.  
K’thriss jumped behind the shape of a barrel seconds before another purple symbol, _chaos_ , tore through the space he had been standing. He set himself, and drew _light_ to fire back.  
Back and forth shot strokes of colored fire between drow and halfling, ancient words known only to the few slung with meaning into the dark air. Each symbol would shout its aura of light into the darkness and slam with force into the splintering negative crates. _Pain, tear, ascension_ , each sign was endowed with the arcane power of reference and intentionality in this strange place.  
K’thriss’ mind was acting fast, almost automatically following the mystical yet logical flow the combat required. The halfling shot _weary_ and K’thriss responded with _peace_. A purple _despair_ was met with a green _balance_. K’thriss was knocked to the stone floor by the force of _obsession_ , but he gritted his teeth and signed back _watching_. The halfling smiled, easily dodging and looming over K’thriss’ fallen form. _MOUTH_ , came an enormous symbol, threatening to devour him whole.  
Without thinking, he signed the Ur, _that-which-endures_. The flame turned not green or white but colorless, and an orb of perfect sense filled the space. Yet rather than contracting as most had, this one exploded outward, engulfing the entire scene in nothingness as both combatants yelled.

....................

K’thriss came to with a concerned Rosie leaning over him. He was lying on the floor of the warehouse, but its roof had been blown off and fallen in places. He turned his head to the left and saw the still body of his halfling opponent. Its skin was clear, pale and unmarred by symbols, almost as if it had been scrubbed or cauterized.  
“Who was he?” asked K’thriss weakly.  
Rosie let go of some tension as he spoke and sighed, “Just another prodigal.”  
K’thriss looked back at the body and saw that one mark remained on the forehead, between open staring eyes. All was gone except the Ur. He looked between his own pendant and the scar on the other, and felt no closer to truth, only wonder.


End file.
